Pharmacognostical studies on the fruits of Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Miller

Opuntia ficus-indica, which grows as a single species in our country, is referred to as "prickly fig", "donkey fig", "İndian fig", "prickly pear" or "kaynana dili" as folk speech and it is popularly known and used as a cholesterol-lowering in blood, antidiabetic and antiobesity beside its usage as food. In our thesis, the chemical and activities of its fruit juice, pulps and cladotes are aimed for examination. Starting from preparing their mother extracts with methanol: water solvent system, sub-extracts were obtained from each of them and as a result of chromatographic studies 2 flavonol aglycones [isorhamnetin (OP-8) ve 3-O-methyl quercetin (OP-9)] and 4 isorhamnetin glycosides [Narcissine (isorhamnetin-3-O-rutinoside) (OP-3 and OP-7), 7-methoxy isorhamnatin-3-O-rutinoside (rhamnasin-3-O-rutinoside) (OP-2), isorhamnetin-3-O-β-D-galactopyranoside (OP-4) and isorhamnatin-3-O-β-(2′′-O-β-xylopyranosyl-6′′-O-α-rhamnopyranosyl) glucopyranoside (OP-1)] were isolated and their structures were identified by spectroscopic analyses. The identified compounds: isorhamnetin-3-O-β-(2′′-O-β-xylopyranosyl-6′′-O-α-rhamnopyranosyl) glucopyranoside (OP-1) and 7-methoxy isorhamnetin-3-O-rutinoside (rhamnasin-3-O-rutinoside) (OP-2) were known in nature but first isolated from Opuntia ficus-indica. The studies on the structure elucidation of two compounds having a isorhamnetin aglycone with 2 and 1 sugars (OP-11 and OP-14) respectively and a compound with naphtoquinon (OP-16) structure are continuing. Activity studies of the mother extract, sub-extracts and isolated compounds of O. ficus-indica are studied to see their antioxidant, cytotoxic, antidiabetic and antiobesity effects. According to the results obtained, they all showed antioxidant activity against the DPPH radical, safe depending on the dose due to the cytotoxicity assay, and the antidiabetic and antiobesity effects were statistically significant. All these results revealed that Opuntia ficus indica fruits may be investigated as a potential drug raw material in the treatment of diabetes and obesity due to the aglycone structure of isorhamnetin.